Massachusetts man indicted for murder nine years after Jayden Carlson's death

A Worcester County grand jury indicted Steven Stuart, 35, of Auburn, on one count of murder in Jayden Carlson’s death, and he was arraigned June 18 in Worcester County Superior Court. Stuart was held without bail and is due back in court on July 20.

The murder charge reaches back to an August 2012 assault on then-2-year-old Jayden, when Stuart was previously convicted in September 2015 of assault and battery on a child causing serious bodily injury. Prosecutors said Stuart threw the toddler to the ground because he would not stop crying. The Worcester County District Attorney’s Office said Jayden suffered severe, life-altering injuries and ongoing medical complications, and local reporting said Stuart was sentenced to 6 to 8 years in state prison after that conviction.

Jayden died on December 21, 2017, at UMass Memorial Medical Center after a long illness, according to his obituary. His adoptive mother said he could no longer walk, talk, speak, or eat on his own after the attack. The new indictment comes nearly nine years after his death, shifting the case from a child-abuse prosecution to a homicide case tied to the same set of injuries.

The Worcester County District Attorney’s Office said Stuart was dating Jayden’s biological mother at the time of the 2012 assault. Prosecutors have not publicly detailed what prompted the murder filing now, but the office said a grand jury handed up the indictment and that its Unresolved Case Squad continues working long-running cases. That leaves the central question of the case intact: whether investigators uncovered new evidence, or whether the old record was finally viewed as enough to connect the assault to Jayden’s death.

Jayden’s family has called the new charge a painful but welcome step. Deidra Alsten said, “I have mixed emotions, but mainly I’m ecstatic.” For a family that has carried Jayden’s injuries since he was a toddler, the indictment has reopened the case file just as the timeline reaches back to the beginning.